MAX MÜLLER AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. CHAPTER I. DARWIN AND MAX MÜLLER. THE idea of cosmic evolution, in my opinion the greatest conception ever formed by the human intellect, is at the present day stirring and agitating the minds of all. The name of Darwin suggests the idea of mighty opposing forces, and the passionate controversy which inflames the minds of men spreads from the sphere of science down to the regions of daily talk, and is fought out in a gigantic ever-growing mass of popular literature. Just as formerly there used to be no department of science that did not at some point or other come in collision with religious tradition and ecclesiastical orthodoxy, so that a clear understanding with and emancipation from these powers became the first condition of life and action to the awakening sciences, so at the present day there is no department B of human knowledge but is compelled to bring its own supreme and ultimate problems into relation with the idea of evolution; nay, even to regard itself as a mere branch of the great tree whose roots are lost in the immeasurable past, while its topmost shoots reach into the broad bright space of heaven, and its blossoms give gay promise of the fruit that is to ripen for later generations. This mighty tree is the science of Man. It is only by the study of its own past that the human mind is enabled to solve the great riddle, and attain a clearer understanding of itself and its place in the universe, and at the same time to acquire a guiding star, a compass in the dark kingdom of futurity, which will preserve it from the vain wanderings and useless expenditure of force so frequent and fatal in the past. With a clear consciousness of the aim and a firmer grasp of the means, the future development of the human race will leave all previous attainments far behind. Indeed, it is hardly too much to affirm that the course of a few more centuries will enable our race to look back upon this enlightened, cultivated and refined nineteenth century of ours as a period of barbarism and ignorance. The idea of development, as has often been remarked, is by no means a novel one. Its germs may be traced back to that chosen people whose enlightened glance first sought to trace the presiding influence of reason in creation, back to the earliest Greek philosophers; among whom notably the deep-souled Herakleitos, the Obscure,' conceived the world as an eternal |